things with words; things obvious and familiar to them, and which 

 would make the tongue easier to be obtained by them. 



"Many able gardeners and husbandmen are ignorant of the reason 

 of their calling; as most artificers are of the reason of their own 

 rules that govern their excellent workmanship. But a naturalist and 

 mechanic of this sort is master of the reason of both; and might be of 

 practice too, if his industry kept pace with his speculations, which 

 were very commendable, and without which he cannot be said to be 

 a complete naturalist or mechanic. 



"Finally, if a man be the index or epitome of the world, as phil- 

 osophers tell us, we have only to read ourselves well, to be learned in 

 it. But because there is nothing we less regard than the characters 

 of the Power that made us, which are so clearly written upon us, and 

 the world he has given us, and can best tell us what we are and 

 should be, we are even strangers to our own genius; the glass in which 

 we should see that true, instructing and agreeable variety, which 

 is to be observed in nature, to the admiration of that wisdom and the 

 adoration of that Power which made us all." 



Had these suggestions been adopted at the time they were offered, 

 the education of to-day would have been far in advance of its present 

 state, and the country schools in Pennsylvania would be turning out 

 classes of enthusiastic scholars, informed and interested in the 

 wonderful phenomena of the natural world in which they have been 

 placed, and which they are endowed with power, to study, use and 

 enjoy. 



JOHN HAMILTON, 

 Secretary of Agriculture. 



